radiation sickness

As the United States government is now upgrading its nuclear arsenal under President Obama’s orders, as first strike plans by the U.S. against Russia and other countries have been in place for decades, as U.S. foreign policy is pushing Russia toward nuclear war through Syria, and by encirclement via NATO and missile systems, this is a reminder of what nuclear war means.

Pentagon officials talk about keeping U.S. attacks on other countries as an “away game”, but there is a very old American saying about the chickens coming home to roost.

For the reality of American foreign policy, Global Research (www.globalresearch.org) carries excellent and ongoing coverage from independent investigative journalists and experts, and has in-depth reports including on Ukraine and Syria.

From David Swanson.org

November 2, 2016

Thirty-seven years ago, the United States Congress commissioned and published a work of fiction, an account of what life in Charlottesville, Virginia, might be like during a nuclear war. It’s contained in a longer report called The Effects of Nuclear Warwhich came out in May of 1979. It’s widely available online.

I take an interest for 15 pretty solid reasons:

I live in Charlottesville.

The world still has enough nuclear weapons with which to destroy itself many times over.

We pay a lot less attention to preventing such a disaster now than we did 37 years ago.

The United States and Russia are as close to war as they’ve been in 98 years.

The United States is investing in newer and smaller, “more usable” nukes.

This Congressional best case scenario for a U.S. city during a nuclear war is deeply disturbing.

We now know that even a limited nuclear war would produce a nuclear winter, preventing the production of crops depicted in this tale.

It’s not so clear to me that Charlottesville would still rank last on a list of targets for nuclear missiles. It is, after all, home to the Army JAG school, the National Ground Intelligence Center, various weapon makers, a heavily militarized university, and the CIA’s underground hideout.

The United Nations has just set up negotiations for the coming year of a global treaty to ban nuclear weapons, and it’s worth trying to understand why.

If we survive our possession of nuclear knowledge, we still have climate catastrophe to quickly and miraculously evade or prepare for.

The Republican candidate for U.S. president.

The Democratic candidate for U.S. president.

So, here are a few excerpts that I encourage you to consider:

“[This account] presents one among many possibilities, and in particular it does not consider the situation if martial law were imposed or if the social fabric disintegrated into anarchy. . . .

“Refugees came from Washington, 130 miles to the north, and they came from Richmond, 70 miles to the east. A few of the hardier types continued on into the mountains and caverns near Skyline Drive; the majority sought the reassurances of civilization that the small city could provide. . . .

“At the sound of the sirens and the emergency radio alerts, most of Charlottesville and Albemarle County hurried to shelter. Fortunately, Charlottesville had a surplus of shelter space for its own population, though the refugees easily took up the slack. Many headed for the University grounds and the basements of the old neoclassical buildings designed by Thomas Jefferson; others headed downtown for the office building parking garages. . . .

“Most did not see the attacks on Richmond and on Washington as they huddled in their shelters. But the sky to the east and north of Charlottesville glowed brilliant in the noonday sun. At first no one knew how extensive the damage was. . . .

“The total dose [of radiation] in the first 4 days was 2,000 reins, which killed those who refused to believe shelter was necessary, and increased the risk of eventually dying of cancer for those who were properly sheltered. . . .

“Three days after the attacks, the next large influx of refugees poured into Charlottesville, many of them suffering with the early symptoms of radiation sickness. . . .

“After being turned away, the sick had no specific destination. Many still clustered around the middle of town near the two major hospitals, taking up residence in the houses abandoned by local residents several days before. With minimal protection from fallout and no medical treatment for other trauma, many died, their bodies left unburied for several weeks. . . .

“Unprotected farm animals were dead, while those which had been confined to fairly solid barns with uncontaminated feed had a fair chance of surviving. Many of these farm animals, however, were missing, apparently eaten by hungry refugees and residents. . . .

“During the third week after the attacks, the new rationing system come into force. Individual identification cards were issued to every man, woman and child. Food was distributed at centralized points. . . .

“By now, the emergency government recognized that the need for food was going to be acute. Without power for refrigeration, much food had spoiled; stocks of nonperishable foods were mostly exhausted. As the shortages became clear, the price of food skyrocketed. . . .

“In addition to those with terminal radiation sickness, there were those with nonfatal cases and those who showed some symptoms. Often it was impossible for doctors to quickly identify those with flu or psychosomatic radiation symptoms. The number of patients crowding the emergency rooms did not slacken off. . . .

“The supply of drugs on hand at the hospitals was dwindling fast. Although penicillin could be manufactured fairly easily in the laboratories at the university, many other drugs were not so simple, even with talent and ingenuity. . . .

“Food riots broke out 4 1/2 weeks after the attacks — precipitated by the first large shipment of grain. . . .

“One day, quite without warning, the city manager was informed that one-half of his fuel stores were to be confiscated by the Federal Government, for the military and for the reconstruction effort. . . .

“In Charlottesville alone, several thousand people died in the first winter after the nuclear attack. . . .

“It was clear that if the economy did not get moving again soon, it might never. Already there were indications that manufacturing was not reestablishing itself with anywhere near the speed the planners had hoped. . . .

“‘We will have survived biologically, but our way of life is going to be unrecognizable. In several generations, the United States is going to resemble a late medieval society.'”

U.S. Navy sailors exposed to radioactive fallout from the Fukushima nuclear disaster have been falling ill, even as the Defense Department insists that they were not exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. Many of the sailors have now joined in a class action lawsuit against Fukushima operators and builders Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), Toshiba, Hitachi, Ebasco and General Electric.

Even if they wanted to — which many do not — the sailors would be unable to sue the Navy. According to a Supreme Court ruling from the 1950s known as the Feres Doctrine, soldiers cannot sue the government for injuries resulting directly from their military service.

Mocked and attacked

On March 11, 2011, a massive earthquake and tsunami triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. It was the worst nuclear disaster in history, releasing twice as much radioactive material as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

That same day, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan was redirected to the coast of Japan to participate in relief work for tsunami survivors. When sailors from the ship later began to fall ill, Congress asked the Defense Department for a report on the issue. The Pentagon report concluded that the sailors had not been exposed to enough radiation or contaminated water to cause health effects.

Yet in the four years since the disaster, at least 500 sailors have fallen ill, and 247 of them have joined the class-action suit. The 100-page legal complaint chronicles their symptoms: an airplane mechanic suffering from unexplained muscle wasting; a woman whose baby was born ill; a sailor told his health problems must be genetic, even though his identical twin is perfectly healthy; and case after case of cancer, internal bleeding, abscesses, thyroid dysfunction and birth defects.

The defendants initially claimed that they could not be sued in a U.S. court, so plaintiffs’ attorney Paul Garner asked the sailors to come to a court hearing in San Diego, to offer moral support.

Nearly all of them refused, for fear of public attack. Initial plaintiff Lindsey Cooper, for example, had already been mocked by atomic energy experts on CNN and by conservative radio hosts. Others were afraid of being perceived as anti-military, or un-American.

Powerful interests at stake

Only one plaintiff was willing to show up: Lieutenant Steve Simmons. Once a triathlon runner, Simmons fell ill a year after returning from Japan, suffering from hair loss, muscle wasting, migraines, bloody discharge and incontinence. His fingers turned yellow or even brown, and his feet have now turned dark red. He suffers from whole-body spasms and must now use a wheelchair.

He has never received a diagnosis for his problems, and sometimes he wonders if his Defense Department doctors are deliberately withholding one, so that the Department need not be held responsible. One doctor, he said, told him it would be better if he didn’t know the cause of his illness.

Disturbingly, Spiegel Online reported:

Early on, [Simmons] was in a military hospital in Washington DC together with three other men who had similar symptoms, he says. They had served on nuclear-powered submarines, but they disappeared from one day to the next, and when he asked what happened to them, everyone acted as though they had never been there in the first place.

Simmons believes that the Navy meant to do good with the mission to Japan, and does not blame USS Ronald Reagan‘s commander, Captain Thom Burke, for what happened to him. But he is troubled by Burke’s silence now, he says. He believes that Burke will not speak out about the case because he hopes to become an admiral.

“Personal, diplomatic and economic interests are all at stake,” Simmons said.

“They’re leaving us alone. They’re closing their eyes, keeping quiet and waiting for it to blow over. There are sick soldiers everywhere, many in the hospital in San Diego, or in the medical center in Hawaii. They are ordinary folks who are poorly insured, with family and kids. Loyal and scattered. Most of them don’t know how to react. Those who raise their voices are denounced in the Internet for being unpatriotic. You have to put up with a lot.”

21:30 in — November 2011 I noticed something was wrong… The black-out was the first thing… I started dealing with gastrointestinal issues, at first I thought I was coming down with a stomach bug… Fevers as high as 102.9°F… January 2012 was the first time I was hospitalized… [They] sent me home with a sinus infection. Three days later I was readmitted to the hospital because my lymph nodes were swelling… that’s when my legs buckled and the muscle weakness started to onset… it’s been ascending from legs, trunk, arms, hands… I can’t really use the muscles much at all. I’m down to about 20 lbs. of grip strength in my hands, which is barely functional… I do have to catheterize every 4 hours in order to empty the bladder. The migraines still get worse. The fevers still come and go, and they keep calling it a fever of unknown origin. My vitamin D is in the gutter, they just keep calling it an unspecified vitamin D deficiency… 2nd degree burns on my legs just from being out in the sun for 3 or 4 hours… that had never been a concern. Nobody can figure it out. I’ve been getting these rashes that come and go; they’ll go up my arms, my neck, around my eyes, back, stomach, legs. I deal with tremors and spasms… I am [in a wheelchair]… There’s days I don’t even get out of bed… for a long time I thought I was the only one. I had no idea there were other individuals that were even sick or dealing with ailments… Doctors wouldn’t tell us anything… I’ve had doctors tell me maybe you’re better off not knowing what you’re dealing with… You can’t have over 100 or 200 people sick, and one who has died last April, and say there is absolutely no health risk.

35:00 in — Finding out that there’s more people that are sick, finding out there were some other individuals at Walter Reed [Hospital]… almost identical symptoms to what I was dealing with… they we’re told to be quiet, and next thing I know they’re, who knows where they’re at, nobody’s heard from them, nobody has seen them. I have a buddy at Walter Reed right now, whose going through the same exact thing, very similar to what I’m dealing with — maybe 6 months to a year behind on the symptoms… His wife would call my wife and my wife would explain what he could expect next and sure as anything that happens next… Him and I both had doctors who have actively tried to convince us that there’s physically nothing wrong and it’s all psychological… This is ridiculous… He’s also in a wheelchair and when he went to the clinic to get fitted for a wheelchair, this doctor told him that it’s all in his head, and he doesn’t need a wheelchair… This is uncalled for.

46:00 in — We now realize how bad it was… the worst disaster in history, then it’s time to acknowledge the fact that, yeah there is a problem, and there are going to be some effects on human life… If the worst case happens, and some more folks pass — I would have to be naive to think that nobody else is going to pass away from this — it’s only a matter of time before there’s more lives lost. I would be lying if I don’t think every day that I’m going to be next because of how bad my health keeps going downhill.

EPA wants to raise radiation limits by a factor of 350! Tell EPA head Gina McCarthy (who was responsible for the EPA’s RadNet monitors not working in the immediate aftermath of Fukushima) what they can do with the proposed new standards; public input requested:http://www.epa.gov/radiation/laws/190/#publicinput